As I've said in the past, one of the
most fun things about this job is the opportunity to present a number of new
ideas to readers, who happen to share an interest in sports betting. Some ideas
are mine, others are things that I've heard over the past 30 years, while
others are a combination of both.
This is one that I ran across a
number of years ago either in print or verbally that deals with college
basketball and the natural uneasiness that most sportsbooks have when it comes
to accepting wagers on the sport.
A bettor can tell exactly how much
confidence a sportsbook has in a sport's ability to be beaten by sharp bettors
by looking at its betting limits. If the sportsbook has confidence that a sport
cannot be beaten regularly, it will have larger betting limits. This is why you
can bet more on the NFL than any other sport or why you can place a larger bet
on the NBA than you can a college basketball game.
No sport causes sportsbooks concern
as much as college basketball. This may be in part due to the point spread
scandals that have rocked the sport over the years, but these cases are few and
far between. The predominant reason that sportsbooks dislike college basketball
is that it can be beaten by sharp bettors.
The
Theory Behind the Method
As a result of this natural fear of
the college basketball, bookmakers will often over-adjust lines when a team is
doing exceptionally well or exceptionally poor against the spread.
The basic premise behind the method
is to take the best and worst teams against the point spread on Feb. 1 and look
for the teams to start performing the other way. Teams which have exceptional
spread records will start to not cover, while teams with poor point spread
records will start to cover as the sportsbooks make line adjustments.
The method does have some merit to
it based on logic, although I would be a bit hesitant to make a wager solely
because of it. It could be a deciding factor on whether or not to make a play,
or possibly upgrading a wager from a small action play to a regular-sized bet.
Still, it is something you may want
to track this season and see if it still stands up to the test of time.
